Feminism and Spirituality? What am I thinking?

Feminism.

When I was younger, I thought everyone, at least everyone in my generation, believed in it. I didn’t really care whether or not some of my family members believed in it until I realized how important it was to me that they didn’t. I slowly discovered that there have been quite a few other people who I considered close to me who didn’t believe in it, and I was shocked. I’ve been a feminist since I was about fourteen.

Spirituality.

When I finally realized I was going to write a memoir and I looked back over my life, it shocked the heck out of me to realize I’d started my spiritual journey around that time, too. It took me a while to put the pieces together, but there was this book, The Source, by James A. Michener. When anyone asked, I always said it was my favorite. It was such an incredible story. It made me want to know more about everything.

Women’s issues and spirituality. Two of the hardest things to rave about. And I’m trying to do both, simultaneously.

They do have a couple of things in common. They’re both spinning whorls of valiant, repetitive messages, which are generating loops of heart-warming positive feedback.

They’ve also both been marginalized topics of conversation for a long time. They’re sensitive, confusing subjects. Some people are afraid of them. Others don’t think there needs to be any further discussion because everything is fine as it is. And there’s a lot of negativity because there are a lot of people who don’t want to talk about anything that’s different than what they believe.

I think we all go through some kind of vision quest.

I think most people are taken through various difficult, sometimes even hellish, events that give them an opportunity to figure out what’s important in life. While I’ve experienced some incredibly challenging situations, my stories are really about something else. I realized that those aren’t the most important things about my life, and while I understand they drove many of my decisions, they also drove me to a place where I’ve been experiencing phenomenal events I never believed could be possible and that’s what I want people to know.

In 1998 I had an experience that was incredibly beautiful, but it really confused me. I shared the story with a few people, but I didn’t know what to do with it beyond that. A few years later, in 2002, I experienced another profound event and it pushed me to rethink everything I’d been taught about God. It gave me courage to leave my marriage, which resulted in years of intense personal difficulties, but, to my surprise, remarkable events kept occurring. Sometimes the gifts my kids or I received were so beautiful, they were overwhelming. The difficulties I’ve been through, however, are common—experiencing abusive relationships, being a single parent who is struggling financially, finding myself isolated for a number of reasons—but I now understand the reason for everything that has happened, it created opportunities. So, while I’ve experienced a deep, sometimes painful process of personal growth, my stories aren’t focused on heroic endeavors, they’re focused on paths that have provided opportunities for understanding. Since 1998, I’ve also been searching for information about other people’s spiritual experiences. I’ve read a wide variety of books and found a number of websites that have been generated by feminists, but the bulk of those stories revolve around historical perspectives or the concept of the goddess. It took me a while to put the pieces together, to recognize the fact that I am a feminist who is having spiritual experiences, but, prior to all of this, it never occurred to me that there could be any relationship between feminism and God, so my experiences have led me to believe it’s important to talk about it.

My quest is about radically changing perspectives. Along my journey to seek understanding about spirituality and my efforts to understand the difficulties of living life as a feminist, I’ve reached a place where they’ve intersected. From my experiences and the information that has come to me, often fortuitously, I’ve generated concepts that speak to life as a feminist and the radical notion that God supports feminism, as well as all of the other groups of people who don’t fit into the dualistic views about humanity, and progressive ideas.

So, my goal now is to figure out how to overcome the fact that with spirituality, with God, there’s colossal opposition to new ideas.

Even among people who claim they’re spiritual. Many of those people are now following concepts that involve the idea that God is energy and it includes the belief that people can acquire God’s positive energy through meditation and correct thinking and that this, finally, is the answer to everything.

But those concepts have negative implications that don’t make sense to me. People are now saying they can feel someone’s negative energy and I am starting to see people judge/fear/want to avoid others who exhibit the slightest bit of negativity. The concepts suggest people can think their way to wealth and, if that’s the case, won’t that compel everyone to venerate the rich? Will the poor be seen as those who do things wrong, who don’t think correctly, the unblessed other? Will they blame themselves if they experience misfortune? Will that compel others to look down upon those who have (or even want) very little?

And perhaps, more importantly, from what I can see, the current messages of feminism and spirituality are not crossing the divide. They seem to be stuck, speaking primarily to people who are already open to their ideas. And these divisions are creating huge problems for women and our planet, but I believe there is a way to cross the divide.

So, I want to talk about the God I’ve come to know, that for some crazy reason is active in my life.

I want to share the stories I’ve developed that are based on what has happened and, for now anyway, continue to happen.

I may not have an answer to every question, but from what I’ve been given, from the ideas I’m developing from the experiences I’m having, people will get an opportunity to consider some new or at least slightly different ideas about God and see if a shift in their perspectives and beliefs makes sense. I truly believe that radical shifts in thinking are needed now, that they will have a positive impact on our democracy, and they’ll enable our world to transform into a better place for everyone.

Also, please check out the other posts about my spiritual journey and experiences.

It’s been a struggle to figure out how to tell my story. In 2012 an experience occurred that compelled me to try. In 1998 I had an experience that was profound, but I didn’t know what to do with it. In 2002, another. When I left my marriage in 2004, my life shifted dramatically, but I kept dismissing everything that was happening because that’s what I was taught to do, to not believe that what was happening to me was coming from God, until 2012, then an experience happened that I couldn’t ignore.

Since April 2014, a couple of remarkable experiences have occurred that are helping to show some of what I am experiencing. I believe what I have to share in my memoir will help shift how people see God and that shift will have an impact on unnecessary harm that’s being inflicted on many people around the world. I understand there many people who now follow spiritual concepts that revolve around how we think— and they involve ideas that we don’t need to think, we need to just be; that we can think our way to becoming rich; and that all anyone needs is love—and I will be sharing my thoughts about all of that soon.

Please contact me if you would like to share your e-mail to be put on an e-mail list. I will be starting a small newsletter soon and will only use e-mail for announcements of posts or progress on my book.